 | |
| Abbreviation | RHSI |
|---|---|
| Formation | 30 September 1816 |
| Type | Registered charity |
| Purpose | Promote gardening and horticulture |
Region served | Ireland |
President | Peter Harrison |
| Website | www.rhsi.ie |
The Royal Horticultural Society of Ireland (RHSI), founded in 1816, is the Ireland's leading gardening charity.
The RHSI was founded as a charity in 1816 promoting and educating on all aspects of gardening in Ireland. The inaugural meeting took place on 30 September 1816 at the Rose Tavern, Donnybrook, Dublin as a Horticultural Society of Ireland with the Earl of Charlemont as its patron and Francis Hetherington as its chairman. The new society held its first flower show on Easter Monday 1817, and flower and fruit show on 18 August 1817. After a number of shows in the intervening years, the society declined, and was re-established with a new committee in 1830. By 1848 the Society became known as the Royal Horticultural Society of Ireland. [1]
Its membership is made up of both professional and amateur gardeners. [2] In 2016, the RHSI celebrated its 200 anniversary. [3]
In November 2023 the RHSI announced an extraordinary general meeting to consider changing its name by dropping 'Royal' from the title. [4]
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity.
Horticulture is the art and science of growing plants. This definition is seen in its etymology, which is derived from the Latin words hortus, which means "garden" and cultura which means "to cultivate". There are various divisions of horticulture because plants are grown for a variety of purposes. These divisions include, but are not limited to: gardening, plant production/propagation, arboriculture, landscaping, floriculture and turf maintenance. For each of these, there are various professions, aspects, tools used and associated challenges; Each requiring highly specialized skills and knowledge of the horticulturist.
Alan Fred Titchmarsh HonFSE is an English gardener and broadcaster. After working as a professional gardener and a gardening journalist, he became a writer, and a radio and television presenter.
The Worshipful Company of Gardeners is one of the livery companies of the City of London. A fraternity of Gardeners existed in the middle of the fourteenth century; it received a royal charter in 1605. The company no longer exists as a regulatory authority for the sale of produce in London; instead serving as a charitable institution. The company also performs a ceremonial role; it formally presents bouquets to the Queen and to princesses upon their wedding, anniversary, or other similar occasion.
William Robinson: was an Irish practical gardener and journalist whose ideas about wild gardening spurred the movement that led to the popularising of the English cottage garden, a parallel to the search for honest simplicity and vernacular style of the British Arts and Crafts movement, and were important in promoting the woodland garden. Robinson is credited as an early practitioner of the mixed herbaceous border of hardy perennial plants, a champion too of the "wild garden", who vanquished the high Victorian pattern garden of planted-out bedding schemes. Robinson's new approach to gardening gained popularity through his magazines and several books—particularly The Wild Garden, illustrated by Alfred Parsons, and The English Flower Garden.
Diarmuid Gavin is an Irish garden designer and television personality. He has presented gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show on nine occasions from 1995 to 2016, winning a number of medals, including gold in 2011. He has also authored or co-authored at least ten gardening-related books.
The Hampton Court Garden Festival is an annual British flower show, held in early July of each year. The show is run by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) at Hampton Court Palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. The show features show gardens, floral marquees and pavilions, talks, and demonstrations. Erected on the north and south sides of the Long Water in Hampton Court Park, it is the second major national show after the Chelsea Flower Show, but has a different character, focusing more on environmental issues, growing your own food, vegetables and cookery, as well as selling gardening accessories, plants and flowers.
Charlotte Elouise Dimmock is an English gardening expert and television presenter. She was a member of the team on Ground Force, a BBC gardening makeover programme, airing from 1997 to 2005.
Joseph Forsyth Johnson was an English landscape architect and disciple of John Ruskin. He "played a pivotal role in introducing the notion of naturalistic planting."
The Victoria Medal of Honour (VMH) is awarded to British horticulturists resident in the United Kingdom whom the Royal Horticultural Society Council considers deserving of special honour by the Society.
Andromeda Botanic Gardens is an organic 8-acre (3.2 ha) botanical garden and a historic cultural attraction in the village of Bathsheba, Saint Joseph in Barbados. It is an authentic garden created by multiple award-winning horticulturalist Iris Bannochie, a female, Barbadian, self-taught scientist. It is unique, having been created from the 1950s as both a private botanical garden and a pleasure garden by an individual. Named from the Greek mythological figure of Andromeda it started as a private plant collection around Ms Bannochie's home, who was also the leading expert on horticulture on the island. Ms Bannochie wrote various academic papers from topics including the lifecycle of the whistling frog, and the vitamin C content of the Barbadian cherry. She was a mentor to many and considered the queen of Barbadian horticulture. At one point, she was responsible for introducing over 90% of the ornamental plants found in Barbados. Iris Bannochie created the garden from 1954 on land owned by her family since 1740. During the 1950s Barbados was a plantation economy with no history of garden creation. Iris Bannochie travelled the world and collected plants for Andromeda. She showed plants from Andromeda both independently and with the Barbados Horticultural Society many times at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in London, winning numerous medals. In 1982, Ms Bannochie's display was titled Andromeda Gardens at the Show and her exhibition of palms was the largest selection of that plant family ever seen at the Chelsea Flower Show. She was also the recipient of the RHS Veitch Medal and a fellow of the Linnean Society. In 1990, the garden had 40,000 visitors.
Dermot O'Neill was an Irish gardener and editor of Garden Heaven magazine. He appeared on several radio and television programmes for RTÉ and BBC Northern Ireland and contributed regular columns for Irish newspapers and magazines including the RTÉ Guide, The Irish Times, and the Sunday Independent.
Rachel de Thame is an English gardener, television presenter and actress.
Patrick Neill was a British printer and horticulturalist, known as a naturalist. A founding member, and the first secretary, of both the Wernerian Natural History Society (1808–49) and the Caledonian Horticultural Society (1809–49), he is mainly remembered today for having endowed the Neill Medal of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
David Martin Domoney, C Hort. FCI Hort is an English Chartered Horticulturist and celebrity gardener. He co-presents the TV gardening programme Love Your Garden, alongside Alan Titchmarsh, and is the resident gardener on ITV1's This Morning.
Plantify.co.uk is an online plant shop based in Windsor, Berkshire (UK) that sells a wide variety of herbaceous and perennial plants. The plant shop supplies over 3150 plants sourced from small British growers and hosts a Plant Finder encyclopedia and free garden design tool.
Sue-Anne Hilbre Biggs was the Director General of the Royal Horticultural Society, retiring in June 2022 as the longest-serving Director General in the charity's history. Biggs began her career in the travel industry, where she worked for 30 years, and was awarded an Outstanding Achievement Award by the Travel Weekly Globe Travel Awards. She was made a CBE in the 2017 New Year Honours, for her services to the environment at ornamental horticulture industries.
Helen Dillon, is a Scottish and Irish gardener, garden designer and lecturer, and media personality, who operated one of Ireland's most-visited private gardens for 44 years.
Gerald "Gerry" Daly is an Irish Horticulturist, garden designer and media personality and editor of The Irish Garden magazine. He has featured, over a period of nearly 40 years, on multiple radio and television programmes on RTÉ and BBC Northern Ireland channels, and has contributed, as he still does, regular columns for Irish newspapers and magazines, over more than 30 years, including the Irish Independent, the Sunday Independent and the Farmers Journal.
The Carnivorous Plant Society (CPS), founded in May 1978 in London, is the only UK registered charity dedicated to the study and conservation of carnivorous plants. Its charitable objects are to "advance the education of the public in the study of carnivorous plants, and to promote the conservation of such plants". The Society was established by a group of amateur enthusiasts and received considerable publicity following its launch, including internationally. Within a year it had more than 100 members and by the late 1980s membership stood at around 400.
